Certificates of bravery I didn't know I had.

Hello hello. I wrote this post ages ago but because it’s a vulnerable story it scared me too much so I sent it to the back of the draft pile to think about what it had done. Although it’s still scary to share, it’s been long enough now and needs its chance to be read. This is all about changing the stories we’ve told ourselves for the longest time. If you read it and enjoy it please leave me a heart and/or a comment so I don’t lose sleep and banish it back to The Bad Place (unpublished).

Sara Tasker let me use this pic of hers. It’s not even at her house. Sorry Helen - stole your bathtub dude he’s just a whole vibe and I love him.

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We hadn’t stopped daydreaming about moving into our new house. Constantly throwing about renovation ideas and fighting over what we were going to name our chickens. We might even get a duck. Maybe we’ll build a barn. Anything is possible–(and free)–in daydreams. 

But before any of that could happen, I had to verify my identity. And for someone who’s had more than one name change, let’s just say I’d rather take myself off to the dentist. The mean one. 

Instead, I’d ended up at Kelly the Conveyancer’s office. 

It should be so simple, right? Shakespeare himself said “What’s in a name? Yeah, well Shakespeare didn’t know what he was talking about. 

5 names, 6 different times. 2 marriages. 2 divorces. 1 child. Previous addresses? Oh, zillions. 

All of this is now reflected in that neat little stack of papers, ready for me to present to the next official who gets to make decisions on my future. 

Want to open a new bank account? Pass me your failures! Get a new drivers licence? Hand them over. Buying a house? Let’s just check how many homes you’ve seen break around you before…

And so, I package up my failures and put them in a plastic sleeve. Officially signed, stamped and sealed, declaring, yep: Keeley Rees really did fail that much. 

I have to explain why their computer has a different name to the one on my birth certificate, which is also different again to my drivers licence. 

“And what address would it be under?” Dude, your guess is as good as mine. Let’s just pick one from the phonebook, it’s probably right. 

No matter how many times I’ve tried to rebuild or establish a new name, these papers follow me, haunt me, humiliate me. Not just once or twice, but with every new move forward the powers that be say: Identify yourself. 

Which. Freaking. Version?

Is it the one whose spouse decided his vows were, in fact, optional? Because that version (once again a single mum), had to pack up her son and 2 dogs and leave the home she was creating, to start over once more.

Good times. Let’s bring that up again. 

Or is it the version of the teenage girl who had the brilliant idea of changing her name to forge a new identity after a soap-opera-style family split?

That sounds like an easy trip down Memory Lane. Let’s go there. Bring the snacks. 

Or maybe it’s the version who lived in a caravan for a while? Shared a single bed with her toddler for 18 months?

The one who kept all her stuff in bags and moved about the city in various degrees of being un-housed?

What does it matter? Because none of those are the version sitting here, at the precipice of a life-long dream come true and buying a house—no, a home–– with the man I love, crazy and dumb enough to give it all another go. 

First, I have to walk back through the cobwebbed graveyard of the past–the homes I’d tried and failed to build–in front of other people, admitting to them, yes. I’d stuffed it. Stuffed it real good. 

Maybe there’s a tiny, strange part of me that tries to find the fun in it: Watching the Big Wigs putting it together like some kind of governmental-inspired Escape Room: ‘This piece goes there…that piece over there, and TA-DA! All connected. We can verify that this really is the same person.’

Perfect.

Can’t I just get the one certificate that explains all of that and states ‘Keeley Rees gets to start again.’

Where can I get one of those?

Maybe it could be a parchment scroll with a big red wax seal to make it ultra official, declaring to any powers that be: “Hear ye, hear ye, this is to verify that Keeley Rees is all of the below names, has resided at all of the following 20+ addresses and henceforth doesn’t need to explain her traumatic and insane journey ever again.”

I’d settle for a digital version, if we need to be basic. 

But I don’t have either. And so there I was, sitting at the table with Kelly the Conveyancer, ready to hand over my ‘Encyclopedia of The Many Tumultuous Times of K.R’ so she could verify my identity and we could move forward with buying our home. 

As she began to look through the papers I started my disclaimer vomit. “I know this looks insane, it’s super embarrassing…” Politely laugh. Inwardly cry. Etcetera. 

“Stop.” Kelly the Conveyancer said.

“You know what this tells me? You’re brave, aren’t you. Look how much you’ve overcome…”

I believe my highly eloquent response was “Errr…um…”

My identity verified, I’d left not long after and walked back to my car, certificates of bravery in hand.

Oh! By the by: We do have names for our chickens now, we just don’t have the chickens yet. But my bonus daughter (5yrs) has decided they will be: Tickles, Pickles and Sunny and I couldn’t have chosen better myself.